Kaspersky: Windows Vista less safe than XP

Security company Kaspersky claimed that Vista's User Account Control (UAC), the system of user privileges that can be used to restrict users' administrative rights, will be so annoying that users will disable it.

Natalya Kaspersky, the company's chief executive, said that without UAC, Vista will be less secure than Windows XP SP2. "There's a question mark if Vista security has improved, or has really dropped down," she said to our sister site ZDNet UK at the CeBIT show in Hanover last week.

Kaspersky provides one of the scanning engines in ForeFront, Microsoft's business security product.

Arno Edelmann, business security product manager for Microsoft, said that Kaspersky's claims were surprising. "We have a thriving community of partners, and Kasperky is one of our best partners," Edelmann told ZDNet UK. "I find their statements a little strange because they have one of the best insights into Microsoft security products."